AIARE class observations on Elephant’s back

Today, we toured Elephant's hump from the Red Lake parking lot as part of AIARE II course. There was new snow from a storm early this morning. Depending on the location, about 2" - 8" of snow had fallen. Most observations taken today aligned with the SAVY Avalanche forecast. In tree regions, new snow was light and soft, sitting on a stronger, settled layer. In open areas facing W, exists some wind-scoured crust. Due to cold temperatures this morning, light faceting of the surface occurred. The other group in our party discovered buried surface hoar on the layer beneath the new snow.

Looking across to Red Lake's peak, we observed heavy wind loading on the leeward side of the ridges from SW gusts last night. We also observed multiple avalanches on S-SE-SW aspects, likely wind slab avalanches triggered naturally.